Bear Watching in Alaska's Lake Clark
- Lucy and the lens
- Oct 1, 2018
- 5 min read
During our ten-day Alaskan adventure with Trek America, which took us from the halibut capital of Homer to the glaciers and orca whales of the Kenai Fjords and the rugged landscapes of Denali and Wrangell St Elias National Parks, one of the major standouts was our bear watching excursion in Lake Clark National Park. This was an optional add-on activity, and not a cheap one...but we knew it would be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see bears in the wild in a safer way than stumbling across one whole hiking! So who were we to resist?
The Preparations
We embarked on our tour from near the town of Seward, starting point for whale-watching trips in the Kenai Fjords. (For details our full trip, go here!) At the base, we were each given a pair of thigh-high waterproof galoshes, as apparently there would be some wading involved! We were also given a safety briefing in advance of our bear encounters - stay together as a group to appear stronger, avoid sudden movements, never get between a mother and her cubs and, if a bear gets too close, slowly drop to our knees to show we weren't about to challenge them for dominance. Although this might sound like a long list of reasons not to go hunting for wild bears, our guides were reassuringly seasoned bear experts, so we felt safe in their hands!
Lake Clark National Park
Lake Clark is one of Alaska's eight national parks. It serves as the intersection between three different mountain ranges, has an alpine tundra and a rainforest, as well an active volcano! It has the largest sockeye salmon population in the world, which is why the bears love it so much! Thanks to our plane ride over to where the bears tend to roam, we were able to see the Park as the birds do, with rivers and their tributaries winding around snow-capped mountains for miles in every direction.
The Plane Ride
Yes, you read it right. We had to take a flight through Lake Clark NP to reach the area where the bears roam. There are no roads running through the park at all - access is by plane or boat only! The planes are small four-seaters that have definitely seen better days. It was the most rattlingly rickety ride we've ever taken, and we questioned how so many people on the bear-watching team came to be qualified pilots. The response? "This is Alaska. Everyone here's a pilot." Fair enough. In a place this remote and inaccessible in wintertime, it makes sense to take to the air!
After about an hour of flying in convoy, we landed on a long, windy, pebbly stretch of beach with the sea on one side and a wide plain bordered by mountains on the other. I guess I always thought it was a cliche, but there really are some views out there in the world that bring you to tears, and this was mine. I think it was the combination of the sheer scale of our surroundings, and the feeling of isolation. Flying is the only way to get to this remote corner of Alaska, and with just three or four planes with four passengers and a guide each, the feeling of insignificance when faced with such endless natural splendour was what the word "awe" was surely invented for.
The Hike
It wasn't as easy as stepping off the plane and seeing bears. Oh, no. We had to hunt for them. Our first signs of bears were the prints, as big as a human's foot, in the mud. We followed these prints for close to an hour, as we hiked through the waterlogged plain, quickly realising why we needed galoshes. At times we were wading through deep, running water so fast-flowing that we had to form a human chain to make sure nobody got swept off their feet! With quite a selection of expensive photography equipment between us, this would have been a disaster! A bear tour at Lake Clark does, therefore, demand a certain level of physical fitness - we were shattered by the end of the return journey when, thanks to the ever-changing waters, our original way had become impassable and we had to take a longer detour back. My galoshes also happened to be a little on the leaky side, and by the time we got back to the plane I was carrying half my body weight in water inside each boot.
The bears
We spotted bears in the distance, and assumed we'd be watching them from afar. Instead, we kept walking, discovering more and more bears paddling in the shallow waters of the lake, hunting for salmon. As they were in the water, it was safe to approach near the shore, and we got to witness several catches, the wriggling fish batted into the air by an enormous paw and then caught and crunched in powerful jaws.
Mesmerised by the kill, we didn't notice what was happening behind us until our guide urgently whispered for us to "get low". We did, looking round to see two bear cubs frolicking in our direction. Their wading mother clocked them at the same moment we did, heading to shore and passing just metres from us in her attempt to keep her cubs in sight. They bounded their way past us and on into the forest, where they disappeared, mum trailing patiently behind. We'd all been holding our breaths in both amazement at the family snapshot and fear of ending up between mum and cubs. We only exhaled when our guide told us we could stand up again.
I have no idea how long we spent there, watching the bears, but we could have stayed for ten times as long. But eventually it was time to leave the bears to their own devices and return to the planes.
The Return
Just to illustrate how remote this place is, the lack of a landing strip means planes have to land and take-off on the beach. The problem with this, of course, is that sand isn't the most solid of surfaces. While my plane took off without a hitch, we looked back to see Patrick's plane still on the ground. We circled round, and it soon became clear they'd somehow got themselves stuck in the sand. As we circled round again we watched everyone pile out of their plane and start to push. We couldn't leave without them as they were the last plane to leave the beach that day, and could have been completely stranded if we'd flown off without realising they were in trouble. Luckily, the "Everybody push!" strategy worked and we all made it back to base in one piece.
So Lake Clark isn't the most accessible park, and you have to have nerves of steel to get there via plane, but they payoffs are huge: a natural reserve free of human influence of any kind, and makes the few humans who do get to witness its beauty feel completely, utterly privileged to be there.
Comments